Category: News

Here we are at the end of one more impressive scientific week. The things appear as quite dramatic in this weekly review. Have you ever tried to imagine how that would work if you could experience a time freeze effect? Well, that’s not only the Matrix movie fiction, that’s our reality. Right now, the neuroscience is trying to explain such a phenomenon. It seems it’s about some tricks with consciousness. Does that mean our perception defines our reality, as Morpheus suggested to Neo. Well, maybe. At this stage, we just wanted to encourage your curiosity. Please keep thinking on these… Let’s start with this week editor’s selection.

Neuroscience: The man who saw time freeze

It’s easy to assume that time flows at the same rate for everybody, but experiences like Baker’s show that our continuous stream of consciousness is a fragile illusion, stitched together by the brain’s clever editing. By studying what happens during such extreme events, researchers are revealing how and why the brain plays these temporal tricks – and in some circumstances, they suggest, all of us can experience time warping.

How we created spooky experimental music in a superconductor lab

Superconductivity was first observed in mercury in 1911. Mercury superconducts at −269C, which is just four degrees above absolute zero. This is a bit cold to be of widespread practical use, and so scientists scrambled to discover new superconductors that work at higher temperatures. In the decades that followed, we discovered that most of the elements in the periodic table superconduct, and some alloys do too.

Going with the throughflow

The Indonesian Throughflow is a series of ocean currents linking the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It carries water from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean through the passages and straits of the Indonesian Archipelago.

New device allows brain to bypass spinal cord, move paralyzed limbs

For the first time ever, a paralyzed man can move his fingers and hand with his own thoughts thanks to a new device. A 23-year-old quadriplegic is the first patient to use Neurobridge, an electronic neural bypass for spinal cord injuries that reconnects the brain directly to muscles, allowing voluntary and functional control of a paralyzed limb.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this Weekly Science Picks as we did. Our aim is to accelerate your minds to think faster and better. Until the next time, please stayed tuned.

In 1874, Stepan Andreevich Bers published The Cookbook and gave it as a gift to his sister, countess Sophia Andreevna Tolstaya, the wife of the great Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy.

The book contained a collection of Tolstoy family recipes, the dishes they served to their family and friends, those fortunate souls who belonged to the aristocratic ruling class of late czarist Russia. Almost 150 years later, this cookbook has been translated and republished by Sergei Beltyukov. Available in an inexpensive Kindle format ($3.99), Leo Tolstoy’s family recipe book features dozens of recipes, everything from Tartar Sauce and Spiced Mushrooms (what’s a Russian kitchen without mushrooms?), to Stuffed Dumplings and Green Beans à la Maître d’Hôtel, to Coffee Cake and Viennese Pie. The text comes with a translation, too, of Russian weights and measures used during the period. One recipe Mr. Beltyukov provided to us (which I didn’t see in the book) is for the Tolstoy’s good ole Mac ‘N’ Cheese dish. It goes something like this:

Bring water to a boil, add salt, then add macaroni and leave boiling on light fire until half tender; drain water through a colander, add butter and start putting macaroni back into the pot in layers – layer of macaroni, some grated Parmesan and some vegetable sauce, macaroni again and so on until you run out of macaroni. Put the pot on the edge of the stove, cover with a lid and let it rest in light fire until the macaroni are soft and tender. Shake the pot occasionally to prevent them from burning.

We’ll leave you with bon appétit! — an expression almost certainly heard in the homes of those French-speaking Russian aristocrats.

Source and image.

Quantum optics specialist and ANU alumna Professor Elanor Huntington has been appointed Dean of the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS).

Professor Huntington is the current Head of the School of Engineering and Information Technology at UNSW Canberra, located at the Australian Defence Force Academy. She completed her PhD in experimental quantum optics at ANU in 2000.

“I’m delighted to be joining ANU as Dean. It’s an exciting time to be joining the team,

The bush capital is losing its large old native trees so fast it may have none left within 120 years, an ANU study has found.

Researchers have surveyed trees in green spaces across Canberra and projected their future numbers.

“We predict there will be a considerable decline in the number of large old trees in the next few centuries under current tree management practices,

Bugs Bunny, that carrot-chomping, cross-dressing rascal, might have been created by Tex Avery in the 1940 cartoon A Wild Hare, but he really came into his own under the direction of Chuck Jones.

In cartoons like What’s Opera, Doc and Rabbit Season, Jones refined Bugs’ character, turning him into someone who was witty, resourceful and, most of all, cool. Whether or not he was going up against Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam or Marvin the Martian, Bugs always seemed to have the upper hand. Jones once compared Bugs with his vain, self-aggrandizing rival Daffy Duck by saying, “Bugs is who we want to be. Daffy is who we are.

The Great Barrier Reef grew during the last ice age, even though the water temperatures were four to five degrees colder than today, a team of international scientists has found.

“It was right at the colder limit of what corals can take, but the reef grew and developed from there,

Here we are again! It’s our turn to provide you with the best highlights for the last week. A lot of things have happened during the last 7 days, but what have attracted our attention the most are the stories which come as follows. An interesting question we can notice here is related to the future of the robotics. Try to imagine that your boss is, for instance, a machine. How cool would that be? Sounds futuristic? Well, yes and no. We are already going that way… Let us show you how and much more. Fasten your seatbelts and we can start.

Are we about to see the rise of robot bosses?

The idea that robots and algorithms will take jobs is a common concern about the future. As Bill Gates argued earlier this year: “20 years from now, labour demand for lots of skill sets will be substantially lower.